re: "NC Democrat Recommends Suspending Next Congressional Election"

DMartyr at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") noted a statement by NC Governor Beverly Perdue:

"You have to have more ability from Congress, I think, to work together and to get over the partisan bickering and focus on fixing things. I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover. I really hope that someone can agree with me on that. The one good thing about Raleigh is that for so many years we worked across party lines. It's a little bit more contentious now but it's not impossible to try to do what's right in this state. You want people who don't worry about the next election."

Money quote(s):

"I was reading an unrelated article where a commenter suggested the possibility that the Obama Administration is deliberately stoking racial and class tensions with the intention of inciting riots and anarchy in the streets. The Administration would then declare Martial Law and use that as a pretense to delay or suspend the 2012 Presidential election.

I laughed at the suggestion. Until I read the article above."

9/27

S&S - Ex-Blackwater employees indicted for violating federal firearms laws

From my archive of press clippings:

Stars and Stripes

Ex-Blackwater employees indicted for violating federal firearms laws

By Joseph Neff and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers


Stars and Stripes online edition, Saturday, April 17, 2010


RALEIGH, N.C. — Five former employees of the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater violated a series of federal firearms laws to give the company a leg up in the military contracting and training business, a federal indictment charged Friday.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Blackwater officials falsified federal paperwork to conceal a gift of firearms to Jordan's King Abdullah II, whom Blackwater was courting as a client, the indictment charges.

Former company president Gary Jackson used the tiny Camden County, N.C., sheriff's office as a front to buy AK-47 automatic rifles that Blackwater wanted for its training facility in Moyock, N.C., and the company illegally possessed short-barreled rifles that Blackwater officials thought were useful for winning security contracts."

"Friday's indictment is the latest bad news for Blackwater, which changed its name to Xe in 2009. The company burst into the spotlight in 2004 when four of its contractors were massacred in Fallujah, Iraq, which triggered two attacks on Fallujah by U.S. Marines.

The indictment highlights how Blackwater marketed its personal protection and military training services to countries worldwide, and investigators examined numerous allegations — not all of which are covered in the indictment — that the company exported firearms and other weapons without a license.

King Abdullah visited Blackwater's headquarters in March 2005 along with his two sons, according to government investigators. To curry favor with the king, Blackwater made a gift of five weapons etched with the Blackwater logo — three Glock pistols, an M4 Bushmaster rifle and a Remington shotgun.

Afterward, Blackwater employees realized that they couldn't account for the weapons, and falsely completed federal forms stating that Jackson and a second person had purchased the weapons, the indictment said."

"In February 2006, the company sought a State Department license to export more than $30,000 worth of weapons, including Bushmaster rifles, to Abdullah's private security detail. The State Department approved that export, but denied the company's bid to sell silencers for the weapons."

&

"Friday's charges stem from a wide-ranging federal investigation of Blackwater's weapons dealings that began in February 2006, according to officials and documents. The investigation involved agents from the Treasury Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the Department of Homeland Security's Immigrations and Customs Enforcement bureau; the Commerce Department; the State Department inspector general's office; and other agencies. At times, the team had up to 20 federal agents."

_____

Strobel reported from Washington. McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Jonathan S. Landay in Washington contributed to this report.

DCS - Durham Couple Who Wanted To Adopt On Trial In Egypt

From my archive of press clippings:

Durham County Story


Durham Couple Who Wanted To Adopt On Trial In Egypt

By AP, MyNC, 2 weeks, 3 days ago

Updated: May. 14 4:39 am


CAIRO


A North Carolina couple, Iris Botros and Louis Andros, thought they were finally reaching their dream of having a child when they came to Botros' homeland, Egypt, to adopt twin orphans. Instead they found themselves in a cage in a courtroom, on trial for alleged child trafficking.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Botros and Andros, who live in Durham, N.C., also may have been caught up in an attempt by the Egyptian government to show it is cracking down on human trafficking after criticism from the United States."

"(T)he two traveled to Cairo in the fall and were put in touch with a Coptic Christian orphanage that was caring for two newborn orphans.

The orphanage gave them forged documents to say Botros had given birth to the children, and the couple donated $4,600 to the orphanage, Saleh said. In November, Botros and Andros brought the twins, whom they named Victoria and Alexander, back to their temporary home in a mostly Christian neighborhood of Cairo.

But when they tried to get American passports for the babies, a U.S. Embassy employee became suspicious of them, Saleh said. When asked by an embassy official, Botros admitted she wasn't the biological mother, the lawyer said."

"A second couple - Suzan Hagoulf, an American of Egyptian origin, and her Egyptian husband Medhat Metyas, who have been living in Egypt since 2003 - were also arrested in December.Hagoulf and Metyas adopted a newborn from the same orphanage almost a year ago, according to their lawyer, Naguib Gibrail. When they wanted to visit the U.S. in late 2008, they applied at the U.S. Embassy, where officials asked for a DNA test on the child. The couple were reluctant to present one, and the embassy notified Egyptian police, Gibrail said."

&

"The U.S. Embassy in Cairo would not comment on the case. According to the State Department, few Egyptian children are adopted by American citizens. In fiscal year 2008, the U.S. issued two Egyptian orphans immigrant visas, which must be obtained for internationally adopted children to enter the United States, according U.S. government figures."

TH - Road to foreign adoption grows longer

The Hour

Road to foreign adoption grows longer


Posted on 03/29/2009


RALEIGH, N.C.


By KRISTIN COLLINS

McClatchy Newspapers


It seemed like a simple transaction when Tamara Lackey brought her adopted son from Ethiopia to Chapel Hill, N.C., four years ago:

The abandoned child had been living in a spartan orphanage, and Lackey was willing to provide a loving home.

She filled out paperwork, and five months later her bright-eyed, smiling baby was home.Hundreds of other families around the country are discovering that it's no longer so easy to take in the world's neediest children.

Read the whole article here.

S&S - After decommissioning, carrier’s eventual fate unknown

From my archive of press clippings:

Stars and Stripes

After decommissioning, carrier’s eventual fate unknown

By Teri Weaver and Allison Batdorff, Stars and Stripes

Pacific edition, Sunday, May 25, 2008

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE — Nobody likes moving day — the packing, the lifting and, at day’s end, the echoing of an empty home.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"About 430 crewmembers will stay with the ship over the following few months, before the official decommissioning in January, the Navy said last week.

From there, the carrier’s eventual fate remains unknown.

A group in North Carolina wants it for a museum, homage to CV-63’s namesake location in the state.

Congress this month talked about keeping the Kitty Hawk in ready-reserve status during the next few years.

After decommissioning, the carrier will be assigned to the Navy’s inactive ship inventory."

"Once in Bremerton, the ship will get a full-scale shuttering that will take months."

&

"(E)arlier this month, the House Armed Services Committee approved paying for a study to determine the costs of reactivating the Kitty Hawk and the Kennedy, if needed.

A group in Wilmington, N.C., however, would like to claim the Kitty Hawk for public view."